The role of pulsed electric fields treatment in enhancing the stability of amino acid – sugar complexes:- interactions between L-Phenylalanine and β-Cyclodextrin

Summary In this work, the effect of pulsed electric fields (PEF) treatment on the interactions between amino acids (using L-Phenylalanine: L-Phe) and sugar (using β-Cyclodextrin: β-CD) complex was analysed by fluorescence spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and simultaneous thermal analyzer. Moreover, the molecular dynamics of β-CD–L-Phe inclusion complex treated by PEF was calculated by molecular modelling. The results indicated that β-CD–L-Phe complexes are formed by a molar ratio of 1:1, and the stability constant of such complexes increased from 147 to 614 M −1 by PEF treatment. Thermal characterisations of β-CD–L-Phe complexes indicated that the PEF treatment could increase the yield of complexes. The PEF treatment resulted in an increase in the reaction enthalpy of β-CD–L-Phe inclusion complexes by DSC curve. These results show that PEF treatment has the potential to promote the chemical processing, especially the small organic molecules participate in inclusion or cross-linking reaction.